Mapping Rain in Chalk

Yet Another Palaeographical Fable

An embodied demon, jarred awake

by the consoling sound of the sea,

decides to walk across the fossil world.

Revenant electricity and oracular

wreckage from the night mind hover

behind his shoulder, endured with

destinies coiled in corrosive echoes—

while brawn wings of deep heart muscle

shudder within the core of his shadow.

In his wake, lampfire trembles. Lost dogs,

unable to hunt, fling themselves through

staccato walls of candor and brunt tones.

Doors break across cellars filled with ascending

rumors and a clangor of bronze calf-head

deities sunk into caustic slurries of reverie.

An angel behind the gate of an ancient heat,

a rich voice burnt with incense in the testified air,

implores the demon to enter a room of Paradise—

Silence is refusal. Dreams spill over into incantations

while rumbling undertows drown doubts and mysteries.

But only a man can speak a devil's assent.

copyright © lcmt

This poem is included in The Wife of History and Other Planetary Characters, Intaglio Galosh Studio Press, 2010.